A Memory in the Black (The New Aeneid Cycle) (7 page)

"I don't want anything more to do with you, bitch."

That one sentence from Elsa told Marette all she needed: the hacker team would not help further. Nearly all expressed their unwillingness in one form or another: fear, uncertainty, or, in the case of Elsa, naked rage. Except for Marc, none would agree to go back in. Elsa was merely the most succinct.

Marette's
racquetball sprang off the wall with a reverberating smack that filled the court that she alone occupied. She rushed to get her own volley, swung, and missed a fraction of a second before her momentum slapped her against another wall. The tiny blue sphere bounced off the rear wall at an obtuse angle and dropped into a bouncing roll that took it to the front corner. With a curse, she sat on the floor to catch her breath. It was nearly nine hours since she had sent the surviving members of the hacker team home to safety. She had been on the court for over an hour.

Once she had made her determination, Marette
ushered the hackers off-Moon as soon as possible. They created both a security risk and a risk to themselves. It mattered not how little they might achieve in a second hack on Alpha Station, or how few of the group made the attempt. If they were caught, action would be taken against them all. To speed their departure, Marette reported her decision to Command at a late hour when there would be less argument. She had not expected her decision to be questioned, but she had not wished to take chances. She wanted them away and out of danger.

Except for Marc.
And especially for Marc.

It was t
hat dichotomy that led her to allow him only an aborted farewell.

"If fortune favors, you will be returning," she
had told him early that morning. "I have reported you as the only team member willing."

"I can't stay now?"

"It is not how they wish to continue. I am not even certain ESA will proceed in the same manner."

"They might not send in independents again, you mean."
There was disappointment in his tone.

"The decision
is not yet made. And you are in danger here."

"I won't be for long, once the rest leave.
I'll be back, I think." He paused. "But, if I'm not—I mean, that is, if—"

She watched him try to stammer out an
adieu
a second longer before taking his mouth in a kiss. It was pointless for him to say more, and she didn't want to hear it. Wrapping him in a tight embrace, she drew as much companionship from that kiss as she could.

She wanted him safe.
The death of Alberto, the AoA operative she had sent with the first team to enter the structure, still weighed on her beyond the grief she already held for the rest of them. Yet while Marc's departure would further him from danger, it also meant she would be secretly alone once more. Neither feeling was something she could afford. She needed to remain strong, to stay comfortable working alone for as long as it was required of her. Was that the only reason she cared about Marc?

Marette
picked herself up from the floor. It was time for a break.

The
walk back to her quarters was brief. She slipped off the wrist and ankle weights, removed a silver necklace that was the one piece of jewelry she allowed herself, and was about to strip for a shower when the comms-channel sounded.

ESA
Command.

She keyed up voice only. "This is Clarion."

"Chief, something's happened. Have the hackers left yet?"

The Earth waited outside, large and quiet. Elsa kept watch on it as her heels struck harshly on Sunrise Station's concourse floor and took her toward the gate where her shuttle waited. She was returning to Earth, on the last leg of the journey planetside, and hardly too soon.

Though they had not yet managed a second hack on Alpha Station, and though they had zero answers, she
'd snatched the chance to leave the moment it was offered. The ESA witch didn't want them anymore once they refused to be used, and Elsa had no wish to stay.

Elsa was certain they thought to be rid of her and the rest by sending them off with that bonus of hush money that they tried to call "hazard pay."
If ESA thought it was over, they were wrong. She would make certain of that. ESA was cowardly—cowardly in lying to lure her and the others to their deaths, cowardly about sending them away without an explanation. She would see them pay.

She'
d not known Suzanne Namura before a few days ago, and in that time they hadn't spoken in a non-professional capacity. But the ease with which ESA had used her life was offensive. It was infuriating! And had it gone differently, it might have been Elsa lying dead on the table. Bastards! Lying bastards. No one used her. No one.

They would pay.

No one would talk of a plan on the shuttle to Earth orbit. Their reluctance had finally disgusted her. She'd spent the two-hour layover on Sunrise Station apart from them all. In that time, she came to realize that perhaps they were prudent not to discuss things in such an open place. She would speak to them again of plans to make plans on the shuttle to Earth.

Except for Marc and Nick, she amended.
The shuttle to the United States had left shortly after they arrived, and the two men with it. Nick she would find a way to contact later. Marc was useless to her.

And good riddance to him, anyway!
He refused to help when they needed him. Maria and Nigel refused, too, but their reluctance was born of wariness. Marc was simply against them. She'd seen it in his eyes when Clarion had shown up the night before. In his voice. If he wasn't fucking her, he wanted to. Spineless. He was as bad as Clarion. Worse. He'd betrayed them.

The boarding light was off above the gateway.
She was early, and none of the others had arrived yet. She was scowling out the window at the crescent of the Moon, planning, when the man spoke up from behind her.

"Ms. Litzenburg?
There's been a problem. Will you please come with me?"

She turned.

A banshee win
d tears through darkness and hurls rain against the stone fort like a consciousness striving to tear it from its vigil atop the cliffs. The crash of waves rolls up from the sea far below, heard yet unseen but for momentary lightning flashes that shine across its depths and then vanish in the dark.

Shielded by the batt
lements, Michael Flynn weathers the storm. He stands watch for the enemy that approaches and takes solace in the strength of the fort about him: a stronghold of the Agents of Aeneas. He is one of them now, lending his strength to their whole. That whole will support him. Together they stand as secret sentry, defending those who need it, those who live in the shelter of their guardianship, those who cannot defend themselves.

Michael walks
the length of the ramparts, thankful for the shelter the stone gives from the elements that rage only feet away. He helped build this fort. Or had it been there before he came? He suddenly cannot recall. Perhaps both? But it is there, strong beneath his feet. Without a doubt, he belongs.

There
comes a rumble. He feels it on the air and in his mind. A sickening creak of rock cuts through the wind outside. The fort begins to tremble. Michael presses back against the inner wall, his hands bracing against the stone as the wind whips inward to sling bullets of rain across his face. Lightning flashes in an assault of power. Thunder rolls in on its heels.

The
storm rips the ceiling away in an instant. Buttresses crumble, fall, and with them tear away pieces of the cliff. Michael yells an alarm, barely able to hear his own voice, barely able to do more than hunker against what wall remains as the fort breaks apart around him. The deluge strikes with all its strength, drenching him, chilling him. It tears at the foundations of his fortress, ruining the cliff side until it buckles under its own weight and stone after stone falls. Streams of mud carry them down into darkness before they crash and splinter far below. Michael scrambles for footing as his perch begins to slide, broken beneath him, and then is gone.

Somehow he remains
. Michael struggles against the torrent of rain, mud, and wind that twists about him like a thing alive. The fort is no more. He is alone, exposed. Water and darkness blind him as he fights to gain another handhold and keep from being dragged down with the rest.

Lightning flashes
.

Diomedes i
s there.

The older man st
ands atop the cliff, cold, hard, and seemingly immune to the storm that assaults Michael's senses. He regards Michael like a priest on a pulpit. Mud washes over Michael's face, spills into his clothes, yet Diomedes makes no move toward him, gives no sign of acknowledgement beyond a cold gaze that grows harder with every thunderclap.

Rain continues
to pour: rain like daggers, rain like fear, rain like the night Michael pointed a gun at the man he'd once called mentor and told him to get out of his life—at the man who stands there now.

A chunk o
f earth gives way beneath Michael's feet and only a blind, lucky grip on an exposed root saves him from falling after it. Diomedes rushes forward and reaches for Michael's free hand. Diomedes now struggles against the river of mud himself, trying to pull Michael up the cliff to safety, but even as Michael's grip on the root weakens, he beats away his mentor's hand with all the strength he has remaining. Diomedes stumbles back, off balance, until the mud sweeps his feet out from under him and takes him into open air.

Michael watche
s him fall.

Then
the cliff gives way. Michael loses his grip. Rain bears him down into darkness.

The dream's end jolted Michael up in his bed. A crash a moment afterwards jerked his attention to the side where the aloe plant had fallen to the floor from the far edge of his nightstand. He must have knocked it down with his waking movements, though it seemed strange that it should have toppled so easily from so far away.

He swung his feet out of bed
, sat on the edge of the mattress, and tried to shake the nightmare's residue from his thoughts. Fading adrenaline still thrummed through his body as he stared down at the plant. The soil was spilled out across his tan carpet, but at least the pot remained intact. Michael moved to the floor, righted the pot, and then set to returning the dirt to its place. He tried not to think of the dream, or the man.

The small chore was little distraction.
He set the pot back in its place. What did the dream mean? Even as the details faded, Diomedes's falling look was still fresh in his mind. Betrayal. Pain. Loss? It was the same the night Michael turned from him. He'd done his best to forget that night, to move on. Michael had been blind to what the man was, blinded by fear and his own need of support. It still shamed him.

His palm was vibrating.

The hum from the paper-thin chip implanted under the skin of his right palm buzzed against the side of the pot where his hand rested. Michael caught his breath. It was the first time it had activated for him since the Agents of Aeneas had installed it upon his recruitment. It was an identifier, a means of access to any AoA facilities, and a method of recognizing another agent via handshake. And, in emergencies, it would vibrate.

Something was happening.

Check your email first
, he told himself, recalling procedure. He went for his smartphone, propelled by the purpose of being needed. He opened his email, activated the encryption, and scanned what awaited him.

The message, broken into two parts, was relatively brief.
The first part was a protection order for Marc Triton, one of their own. Marc had returned from the lunar crater site within the past week, one of six survivors of a seven-member team. According to the email, the AoA just discovered that the other five were now either missing or dead. Michael was the closest qualified and available agent. Michael would be the one to protect him. Additional details were promised for when he rendezvoused with Marc. For now, time was of the essence.

He hurried through his apartment to gather up his gear, anxious to prove himself, to help, and to learn those additional details.
He was trained to protect. His desire for such things was one of the reasons the Agents of Aeneas had recruited him. Serving as a bodyguard didn't worry him. What did was the second part of the message, the part that listed his additional assignment.

T
he part that contained the name Diomedes.

It took Michael nearly twenty minutes to reach Marc's building. The apartment in which the Agents of Aeneas had placed Michael was across the city, and the late morning rush hour only lengthened the trip. When feasible, multiple agents in a city were geographically dispersed to cover a wider area. In this instance, Michael noted painfully, it worked against them.

A quick phone call
to Marc from the cab had alleviated Michael's worry that his comrade was in any immediate danger. Marc was calm enough, if a bit on edge, and for the moment, safe. The cab's lack of privacy kept the conversation too short to learn more.

Make contact with the freelancer Diomedes.
That single line of text beginning the description of his second objective returned to the focus of Michael's thoughts as the cab forced its way through traffic. He knew Joseph Curwen, the ESA mole, had been shot a week and a half ago, but until now Michael was uninvolved with what the AoA called the Exodus Project, and other duties had kept him from following the details closely. It wasn't until reading the email that Michael learned that Diomedes had pulled the trigger. Yet the brief message offered no evidence. Michael trusted his AoA fellows enough to guess it was more than a hasty assumption, yet he found himself hoping they'd made a mistake.

Soon after he arrived at Marc's, it was clear there was no mistake.

"I just—I just don't know that it's a good idea."

Michael
sat beside Marc, talking to a screen they both were watching. A minute earlier it had shown a video of Diomedes firing the shots that brought down the mole. Now it held the live image of Abigail Brittan, a captain on the Northgate police force and the current AoA area coordinator.

"He know
s you, Michael," Abigail said. "We had our eye on you when you were still under his wing, and we know that he's violently untrusting of others. The video's release will only exacerbate that given the anonymity of its source. It wasn't from a district security camera. It was privately placed, likely by someone who knew he'd be there, and we need someone he knows to make contact. I gather you have a different take?"

Michael had been with the AoA long enough to know that they rarely issued an assignment that wasn't open for debate. Though it was still taking some getting used to for him to comprehend, the AoA philosophy was a communal one that valued input from its members. Leaders and coordinators were, in most cases, an organizational necessity rather than generals leading mindless troops. Michael had no idea
how to find his old mentor and even less of an idea how he'd handle the man's sure negative reaction if he did. If he could persuade them that this was a bad idea, maybe they'd reconsider.

"He knows me," Michael started. "That might make it worse. The last time he saw me I stuck a gun in his face.
I don't guess he'd react well to seeing me again."

"
Unfortunately, the only other agent he's ever had direct contact with is Marc—and you'll be his shadow for a while now."

"
Well, I helped him before," Marc offered. "Maybe the two of us can get him to talk."

"If we can find him.
You said he's gone into hiding?"

"As
far as we can tell, yes." Abigail regarded him a moment. "Michael, we need to learn what, if anything, Curwen told anyone. To find that, we need to know who ordered the hit and why. Diomedes can tell us."

Michael took a deep breath.
"There's no other leads?"

"Not many.
The fact that the corporate security grid was disabled indicates some tampering, but thus far they covered their tracks. What's more, the video footage records Diomedes firing two shots only. The body arrived at the morgue with three wounds. One in the head, two in the chest."

"So there might have been a second shooter," Marc said, echoing Michael's thoughts.

"One of a few possibilities. None of the district cameras were focused on the mole at the time, and we're having trouble reconciling eye-witness accounts. I'll report your concerns. Possibly there's another option. I don't see it, but we'll look. Expect to hear from me within the hour."

The transmission ended
. Michael let out another long breath. Nearly any other assignment would have been welcome. Was contacting Diomedes doomed to failure, or did he just not like the idea?

"So,
" Marc asked suddenly, "how've
you
been?"

Michael laughed.
"I don't guess I can really complain."

What news did he have to tell?
Marc was the first AoA member he'd met. He already knew about the three months of training Michael got after joining, and about the apartment and security job they'd placed him in. The position was only with a small security company—almost like additional training before he could be moved to Aegis, the industry leader. Few freelancers had the values and psych profile that the AoA was looking for, he'd been told. Most were too violent, too selfish. Too much like Diomedes. The Agents of Aeneas needed more people in Aegis, and Michael was to be one of them.

But Marc knew all of this.

"The job's been fine," Michael said. "I've had a couple AoA protection assignments, watching over one or two people for a few days without them knowing it. You've had a more exciting time from what I've heard?"

"I guess I've got my own briefing to
give, huh?" Michael listened as Marc recounted his journey to the Moon. He filled him in on what details of the project's progress Michael didn't know, and then told him of the cryptologist's death and the effect it had on the rest of the team.

"They sent us home quickly after
. Before Elsa and the others had a chance to do more. But ESA found out about their first attempt to hack Alpha Station. They didn't get anything useful, but they still left traces. Everyone from Europe—there were four—disappeared. Records show they left Earth orbit, but no one saw them after that. It's like they just hit the planet and vanished. No one noticed until Nick—the one I told you was from Denver, he was barely twenty-one—he was killed yesterday in an execution made to look like a carjacking."

"And now it's just
you left. If it's ESA, shouldn't we have seen it coming? I thought there were agents in there?"

"There are.
But ESA's keeping this quiet. All Marette knew was they'd found evidence of the first hack, and she's one of the highest placed of us there. They kept her out of the loop for more."

"So she's in danger, too?"

Marc sighed briefly. "Maybe. But she thinks it's more a case of plausible deniability. She doesn't need to know, so they don't tell her. Chances are, if her cover was blown, she'd be gone already." He frowned and then added, as if to comfort himself, "But she's able to take care of herself."